2020/8/11/29
The following is from a series of columns by Ryusho Kadota that appeared at the beginning of the recently published monthly magazine Hanada.
It is a must-read not only for Japan but also for people worldwide.
The U.S. Presidential Election Teaches the 'Death' of the Media
The state of the U.S. presidential election must have left many people wondering, "Is this what the media is all about?
The Japanese and American media continued their negative campaign against Trump, predicting and reporting on the Biden victory.
However, the only ones excited as the election approached were the Trump campaign. Biden's rallies lacked enthusiasm, leading to much doubt about whether Biden would win.
As of November 17, the election has been outnumbered by Biden, who received the most votes in history, while Trump received 7.276 million, the most in presidents' history.
Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and many more states had "close races" that defied prior polls and media predictions.
Each state is different, but only those with compelling reasons can vote by mail.
Despite fierce resistance from the Trump campaign, it was allowed, which said it would be a "hotbed of fraud" because of Corona.
However, as feared, a variety of situations erupted.
It brought in a large number of mail-in ballots just before the deadline.
It claimed that a mysterious ballot count had occurred when the monitors were away from the polls.
A court order was issued not to count mail ballots arriving after voting day, and the list continues.
The 2020 U.S. presidential election could have been more evident.
The most interesting state was Wisconsin.
There was a lot of commotion about "the number of votes cast has finally exceeded the number of eligible voters.
A quick check revealed that it compared to the old voter rolls, which were lower than the new ones.
But even so, the voter turnout was 90.2%, an "impossible figure."
There were also accusations that Dominion's tallying system had swapped the Trump vote for the Biden vote, making the election historic in many respects.
What caught my attention was the media's attention.
Elections are the foundation of a democratic society.
In a system where leaders are chosen by the will of the people, which is impossible under a dictatorship such as China's, fraud is unacceptable.
It would mean the collapse of the democratic system.
It is the role of the media to monitor and report on it.
I have been in that system for a long time myself, so I can't help but have "high hopes" for it.
However, after the election, many accusations and testimonies continued, and I was surprised that the media did not move.
The attitude has been "If you have allegations, go ahead and present them," with the Trump campaign all on their shoulders.
Symbolic was the exchange between the press and White House press secretary McEnany, who said, 'You have no proof yet? When asked, a McEnany spokesperson said, "We have a lot of things coming up.. We will announce them shortly. But isn't your job to look for those things? I'm not going to be able to give you any more information about this," she said.
However, even the conservative FOX News stopped the live broadcast, saying, "We can't give you any more information about the press conference unless there is evidence of fraud.
Two weeks after the vote, it turns out that Biden received 7.818 million votes, although they still need to be confirmed.
The previous highest number was 69.49 million votes cast in 2008 when Obama became the United States' first black president.
It was an "impossible" number, surpassing 9 million votes.
There is no doubt that "something is going on.
Still, the journalism didn't budge.
The pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C., on November 15 was brilliant in size and orderliness.
Aerial photos of the demonstration, which reportedly drew hundreds of thousands of people, were so impressive that many tweeted, "A million people demonstrating."
But the U.S. media, which wanted to underestimate the number, reported only "a few thousand" or "over 10,000".
If our Japanese correspondents could have seen it for themselves, they would have been overwhelmed by the sheer number.
But the Japanese media, reporting as the U.S. media did, followed the longstanding practice of saying "thousands" or "over 10,000".
At night, assaults on Trump supporters by radical groups such as Antifa and BML occurred frequently, but only reports that "collisions occurred here and there."
The one-sided reporting that evil = Trump and right = Biden did not change until the end.
What can we call this, if not an abandonment of the mission of journalism?
When China saw that Biden would win, it came back to life and began explicitly threatening the Senkakus and Taiwan.
The U.S. presidential election was the crossroads of whether the 21st century would be the century of democracies or China's century.
Therefore, it must record the media's pathetic state of affairs in history.
